Had to tell you about one of our Auckland Summer Institutions which I just caught the very last bit of this season on Saturday night … Speedway at Western Springs! http://www.springsspeedway.com/

Speedway at the Springs is one of the very noisiest, exciting, action-packed things to do of an Auckland Summer Saturday Evening and for the first time in several years I finally got back to catch some of that action. I’ve been away so long (there was a time when I used to go to the Speedway once a season just to keep in touch) that they’ve even got a new class – quarter midgets … you’ve got your regular midget cars, then your TQ’s or three-quarter midgets, and now they have quarter midgets, which are just tiny – like a swarm of angry bees – but such a lot of fun to watch!

Some of the guys out there amongst it have been there a while too – like Graham Standring (No 33) in the Midgets. http://www.springsspeedway.com/default,128.sm I’m sure some of them have got ethanol running thru their veins instead of the red stuff the rest of us have …

And then the big guns come out – the Sprint Cars with their sheet metal (aluminuim) aerofoils and their 800 horsepower engines … skittering all over the muddy oval and looking like they’re ready to take flight. The action was fast and furious!

Apparently there are some people in Auckland who want to get the Speedway closed down … it’s ‘too noisy’ is their whine … as if!

One of the glorious things about summer in Auckland is the profusion of Jacarandas and Bougainvilleas in bloom at this time of year. I know they’re both imported trees but the intensity of their colours – red and purple – is fabulous. I am fortunate to have a Scarlet O’Hara Bougainvillea Scarlet O’Hara Bougainvillea growing over the back of my house and out my lounge window can see a Jacaranda is all its purple glory. Fantastic!